Kawaipunahele
post episode 1.14: He Kane Hewa'ole
Chin Ho
Disclaimer:
I don't own anything having to do with Hawaii 5 – 0 or the beautiful state of Hawaii except my memories.
Dedication:
To my Mom and Dad who lived in Hawaii ten years. They love the islands and were treated with much aloha as ohana and kama'aina.
Author notes:
Purely creative imagination at play regarding Chin Ho's upbringing. As the series unfolds I have no doubt this will be AU but I hope it is a pleasant read nonetheless. Hawaiian vocabulary is translated at the end. Mahalo nui loa
Kawaipunahele
(sung by Keali'i Reichel)
Puana 'ia ke aloha
ku'u lei aloha mae 'ole
Pili hemo 'ole
Pili pa'a pono
Ke pono ho'i kaua
E Kawaipunahele
Tell of the love
Of my never-fading lei
Never separated
Firmly united
When its right we'll go back
O Kawaipunahele
"Ready to go, Cuz?"
Chin Ho Kelly looked up at the interruption to see his cousin and colleague Kono leaning expectantly in the doorway of his office.
"I'm heading out to Lanikai for a while. Wanna come with?"
"Nah, no surfing for me today. Thanks anyway, Kono."
"Glad this one is over. Next time I'm letting you examine any stray cardboard boxes." she continued, twirling her slipper key chain around her fingers absently, "Swear to God, I'm gonna see the severed head of our vic every time even a UPS truck drives by."
It had been a long day – scratch that, a long few days since their simple commute had turned into a high speed chase that morphed into a grisly double homicide investigation.
"You got that right." Chin sighed heavily, roughly rubbed his eyes to clear the image from his memory.
"Hey, you ok ? Seeing Malia today, I mean..."
"No worse than than seeing a bloody head in a box." Chin pushed back from his desk. "Seriously, I'm fine, Kono. Its my job. We live on an island. I was bound to run into her sometime. I'm only surprised it hadn't happened before."
"I guess so... It was just so...awkward."
"She looked good, really good. Didn't she?"
"Hey, hey, hey don't start thinking about her now, Cuz. She made her choice. Memory lane is just a bad, bad road. You don't want to head back down it. Sure you don't want to come with ? One good wave will make you forget all about her. Trust me."
"I'm gonna stay and work for a while. Finish up the reports and such for tomorrow. I'll be in late. Probably after lunch"
"Uh-huh." Kono arched an eyebrow at him, "because..."
"I'm going to Hilo tonight."
"- to see Tutu? Is anything wrong?"
"No, Cuz, our grandmother is fine. The aunties are fine. I'm fine. It's nothin'. I'll just see you tomorrow, OK?" Chin came around his desk, pulled Kono in for a brotherly hug and flashed her one of his most brilliant smiles in dismissal. "Don't be such a mother hen, Officer Kalakaua."
Two hours, three cups of coffee and a four inch deep stack of administrative paperwork later, Chin grabbed his backpack and a cab from the Palace to Honolulu International Airport for the 7:02 commuter flight to the Big Island.
Another hour and a half after that, he stood with take-out Thai in hand on the front porch of his family home. The porch wrapped around two sides of the small one-story house and an overgrown poinsettia hedge lined the carport on the third. Unkempt bougainvillea vines framed the faded yellow and white building. "Auntie Birdie, its Chin Ho."
He knocked twice before opening the screen. Using the key still kept under a rock next to the hibiscus, he let himself in through the door into his childhood. The living room was as he remembered, sparsely but comfortably furnished in wicker and rattan with pillows and shams made of Hawaiian prints in muted blues and greens from the reverse side of the fabric. The Koa wood bowl filled with balls of yarn and various sizes of knitting needles and an unfinished counted cross-stitch of Queen Liliokalani was perched on a stack of worn magazines at the end of the sofa. Birdie's current quilting project, taut in its frame, graced the center of the room, a ti leaf pattern he recognized. It was the same one she used in the quilt that covered his bed as a boy,
A note on the kitchen counter let him know Auntie Birdie was at church playing bunko with Tutu Kelly and Auntie Wu, there were leftovers in the fridge and would have been beer too had he let his aging auntie know earlier he was coming for a visit. Shame on him for not visiting sooner and staying longer. "I love you too, Auntie" He said aloud to the empty room.
Chuckling to himself at the gentle scolding, Chin emptied steamed rice and panaeng chicken curry from the paper take-out box into a ceramic bowl, poured a glass of iced tea from the fridge. He settled deep in the cushions of the over stuffed papasan chair on the back lanai. The evening was clear and peaceful, free of the bustling sounds of tourist and city nightlife that cluttered his nights in Honolulu. Stars from horizon to horizon and as deep into space as the eye could see, save for the blackness that was Mauna Kea.
His melancholia had nothing to do with the actual case they had finished. The mystery of the disembodied head ended with the arrest of a wealthy businessman's spoiled, sociopathic, murderous daughter. All in a days police work for Governor's elite task force. It was information, uncovered in the investigation, unrelated to the case that had him off balance: His beloved Malia had been held responsible for their break-up. Those who believed the lies, half-truths and lurid speculation that ended his career congratulated her for her good sense. The few friends and even family – like Kono, who remained loyal, thought Malia had abandoned him when things got tough.
"Ku'u ipo, I am so sorry. I didn't know."
He ended their engagement to spare her pain and shame. He walked away when everyone in the Honolulu Police Department believed he was on the take and there was nothing he could do to prove their suspicions wrong and clear his name. He let her go in order to save her from being tainted by his humiliation.
He buried his heartache in a no-skill, dead-end security job at the USS Missouri, bought a bad-ass motorcycle and drank a few too many Longboards on Friday nights with no one in particular, and thought he had done the right thing until she walked out of the elevator at the hospital. Then the heavens opened up with the elevator doors and there she stood smiling, brown eyes sparkling, tucking hair behind her ears and ducking her head just so, all forgiving and caring and loving. There was not a judgmental, unkind bone in her body.
Chin believed it was all in the past, his feelings successfully dead and buried, until he saw the diamond ring strung on a delicate chain around her neck. Like a key it unlocked the dark corner of his soul where he had stashed his heart.
The creak of the screen porch door broke into his thoughts, alerting him to Auntie's return.
"Chin Ho, where are you, boy?"
"Out here – on the lanai."
"You get on in here where I can see you, baby."
"Coming, Auntie." Chin rounded the corner to see the diminutive Asian woman plop her over large handbag down on the counter. "You're out pretty late"
"Eh, you know we talkstory."
Chin rinsed and set his dirty dishes in the sink then turned to greet his auntie properly, but was met with a wrinkled yet firm hand to the chest, "What you doin' wearing shoes in Auntie's house! Where are your slippers?"
"Sorry, sorry." Chin quickly bent to remove his offending footwear to the mat in the entryway and returned barefoot to engulf the diminutive woman who wore a breaking-the-sound-barrier loud Hawaiian print muumuu in an equally forceful hug.
"Its so good to be home, Auntie. I've missed you. The place looks good."
"Ah, maybe I'm gonna sell it. Want to move over to Kauai. I like that nice Dickie Chang on Wala'au. So, why you here?"
"I can't surprise my favorite auntie with a visit?" Under Auntie Birdie's disbelieving stare Chin was nine years old again and caught in a fib about skipping school to go surfing. "It has been a long week. A situation came up at work. I just needed some space to clear my head."
"What situation? What sort of 'situation' can there be? That no account security job put cobwebs in your head. Waste of a good education if you ask me."
"No, Auntie. I work for the Governor now. Special Task Force. I wrote you all about it in an e-mail."
"E-mail? Bah, I don't read e-mail. Real mail comes in an envelope. Besides you should call more. "
"I do call. Every Sunday. You and Tutu. Don't you use that computer I got you for your birthday at all? Let me show you again."
"I use it plenty. Play mahjong with your Cousin Ji Yeon. She stays home raise her kids. They are crazy. Like you were. Hey now, don't YOU go changing me from the subject. Chin Ho Kelly. What is wrong with you? Why you here? Come tell Auntie Birdie." Chin allowed himself to be led by the hand like a small child into the living room.
Sitting side by side on the sofa, Chin recounted the events of the past several months beginning with the murder of his mentor at HPD James McGarrett. He told the old woman about McGarrett's son Steve returning to the islands to bring his father's killer to justice and how Governor Jameson had commissioned Steve to form a special crime fighting unit they call "Five-O" while leaving out most of the more graphic, dangerous details involving bullets, bodies and bombs that happened to the four of them since.
"Kono? My little malolo is involved with your fancy task force?"
"Auntie, she is a cop now."
"Sure. She's a cop, but I think they assign a skinny thing like her to traffic tickets or lost tourists."
"No, no, no Auntie. She is not a little girl anymore. Kono can take care of herself .That skinny thing, as you call her packs a mean right cross and is the best sharp shooter on our team next to McGarrett! She's akamai. She and I do most of the high tech investigating on our cases. McGarrett and Danny –Detective Williams, are more involved with muscle and police procedures."
Soon the conversation lagged. Chin knew the patient woman would wait but not indefinitely for him to come to the point of his visit. With a deep sigh and in almost reverent tones he related the scene at the hospital with Malia. One part of the story led to another the way Auntie's knitting would unravel when one thread is pulled. All of Chin's hopes, dreams, fears, and regrets came tumbling out one after the other.
"So what is the problem? You go back to Honolulu and get the girl, Chin Ho. You love her. I am thinking she still loves you. What else is there? All you need is love. Smart man, John Lennon."
"That is a line from a movie, Auntie"
"Doesn't make it untrue! You swallow your stupid pride. Go tell Malia you love her, you are sorry and you want her forgiveness. Then if she let you, you see if you two can be together. Try to remember how it was for you. Two halves of a whole, you were."
"Nothing has really changed. If anything my life is even more dangerous now that it was when I was on the force. Maybe its not fair to drag her back into all that. Plus the department still hasn't officially closed the case against me. There are folks who still think I'm a bad cop."
"Bah, excuses! This McGarrett believes in you, like his father did before him. Governor Jameson, she is a smart woman too and she believes in you. Crazy man, you love the girl. That ring on her neck means you wont be dragging her anywhere she doesn't already want to go" Birdie kissed him on the forehead and patted Chin firmly on the leg, signaling an end to the conversation. "Get some sleep now. What time you going back to Oahu?"
"Flight is at noon. I thought I'd drive up to the falls in the morning. If I can borrow your car?"
"Keys are on the mirror by the back door. You fill me up with gas after, ok? That is something I can really use not like your silly internet and e-mail. What do I need with a world wide web? I am not a spider!"
"Sure, sure. Mahalo. Aloha, Auntie. Good night."
From the west facing window of his former bedroom, long since redecorated into a sewing and storage room for all of Birdie's projects, Chin could see Mauna Kea, framed by rainclouds, lit up by the early morning sun. Birdie's rusting '94 Corrolla sputtered, shook and occasionally backfired as Chin followed his heart and his memories up the Saddle Road to Waianuenue Falls in Wailuku Park.
The park was largely deserted with just few tourists and local hikers milling about the parking lot. The air was cool and damp, and the Falls, breathtakingly beautiful. Chin hiked half a mile mauka-side to the spot where he had asked Malia to marry him. In his mind's eye he could still see the day. It was raining on their picnic. She suggested they swim in the lagoon anyway. Drenched they took refuge under a tree. Her tears of joy mixed with the tropical rains as he slipped the simple ring on her left hand.
Impulsively he stripped off his t-shirt, kicked off his shoes and dove into the pool. The cool water sent a bracing chill through his body that left him gasping for breath when he surfaced. Heart racing and skin tingling he swam a few strokes before submerging himself completely again. Chin let himself be lost in the weightlessness. The memories of her swirled around him, enveloped him, like the waters. Memories of that day – laughing, crying, making love.
Like an idiot he walked away from the love of his life. It was a stupid. ignoble sacrifice. She had more faith in him, in them, than he'd had. She still did and for the first time since that day he found hope for a future. Resolved and renewed he returned down the hill to Auntie's car, dried off with a towel he found tossed in the back seat.
An hour later with hair still damp from the impromptu swim, Chin kissed his Auntie Birdie goodbye, made effusive promises to bring Kono and his new friends over to the big island to visit properly, and hopped in the taxi back to the airport, back to Oahu, back to Five-0, back to make things right with Malia.
"Steve, Its Chin"
"You ok man? Kono said you went home last night?"
"Yeah, I'm fine. My flight gets in at 12:50, Hawaiian Air. You have time to pick me up or should I take a cab?"
"Nah, I'll be there. Danny's out but I've got my truck. Sure you're ok?"
"Never better." Chin grinned into the phone, "Let's got to Jimmy's pau hana. I'm buying."
"You got it. See you soon."
Chin had one more call to make before the plane took off. Silently thanking Steve Jobs for the iPhone, he looked up that hole-in-the-wall florist down the street from Iolani Palace.
"Cindy's Lei and Flower Shoppe. How may I help you?"
"Yes, I'd like to order flowers for delivery..." From unfaded memories he chose Malia's favorite flower made up in a lei to be sent with a line from one of their favorite songs about the sacred waters, their sacred waters, of Wailuku under the rainbow falls.
"That is a double ginger twist lei delivered to Honolulu Medical Center and the card should read: Puana 'ia ke aloha ku'u lei aloha mae 'ole. No translation? And no signature? Are you sure, Mr. Kelly?"
"She will know what it means. Thank you."
Hawaiian words you may not know:
Ohana – family
Kama'aina – local, not tourist
Mahalo nui loa – thanks very much
Ku'u ipo - My darling
Akamai – (pidgin) smart person
Wala'au – to talk, also a tv show on Kauai hosted by Dickie Chang
Malolo – flying fish
Waianuenue – Rainbow
Tutu – Grandmother
mauka – mountain-side vs maka, which is ocean-side
pau hana – after work.